Examples of past activity

While at PEALS Tom Wakeford pursued several co-inquiry activities, foregrounding the perspectives of groups often excluded from formal dialogue and debate processes

Community or citizens’ juries examined a range of issues and concerns, for example the 'do-it-yourself' jury project in Newcastle, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, which published a Teach Yourself Citizens' Juries handbook (available from PEALS) and film; juries in Tyneside and Hertfordshir which focused on GM crops; and a jury in East Lancashire focusing on alcohol and illegal drug use among young people

Community x-change worked with a group of people living in rural Cumbria and County Durham to influence rural policy

Jackie Haq was a member of the BBSRC and EPSRC Oversight Group, advising them on their synthetic biology public dialogue

In October 2008 Simon Woods and Pauline McCormack collaborated with Professor Volker Straub to meet in conversation with patients and passing visitors at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art to create a 'Couples Exhibition'. The idea behind this was to discuss the nature of hereditary genetic disease and the experience of patients living with such conditions. The event was filmed and edited and is available to view at: http://www.youtube.com/TREATNMD

PEALS was awarded a small grant from The Arts Council England’s ARTISTS INSIGHTS programme in 2007. In partnership with Dott 07 (Designs of the time 2007 http://www.onenortheast.co.uk/dott07.cfm ) PEALS worked with artist and designer Elio Caccavale. Elio used the placement to develop his ideas for ‘The Future Families Project’ through which he was seeking to investigate the technologies that enable assisted conception with a view to exploring the effect they might have on our notions of identity, self, and family

In the How gay are your genes? project, funded by a Royal Society Connecting People to Science (COPUS) grant, Lisa Mathews explored people’s opinions on research into the genetics of sexuality, and gathered testimonies which led to a visual arts exhibition in 2006 about nature/nurture and behavioural genetics

In 2006 PEALS was awarded £175,000 from the Northern Rock Foundation for a project entitled ‘Towards providing new leadership in the involvement of diverse communities, especially those normally marginalised, in influencing decisions in the life sciences’. The work was led by Erica Haimes and Tom Wakeford

In 2006 PEALS was awarded £30,000 from the North East Stem Cell Institute (NESCI) and One North East for public engagement events to debate stem cell research

In 2005 the Life Knowledge Park (LKP) funded a Research Asisstant to conduct a literature review on preimplantation diagnosis: issues of ethicity

Ann Lackie worked with us in 2003 on a project entitled Talking Science which explored science with different community groups and children in Cumbria.